Page 75 - Cultural Studies of Science Education

52 W.-M. Roth

that they return to it after studies and getting settled in a career. That is, teaching
science in a place-based manner, in ways that make local people and places matter,
and toward ecojustice, actually produces and reproduces a stronger social fabric in
rural areas than exists in many urban environments. In fact, there is evidence from
big cities that the introduction of urban gardens fundamentally changes life, including
substantial decreases in crime and violence. Teaching so that the local matters and
for ecojustice, therefore, may contribute to work against the current movement of
people toward urban areas, which has become not only a “brain drain” but also a
problem for maintaining the social fabric in rural areas. In this chapter, I provide an
extended case study of science teaching and learning in one rural community, where
I worked with teachers to draw on the opportunities that a rural area provides for
teaching science.

Introduction

Rural education frequently is represented in the literature as a part of society facing
difficulties and hard times (e.g., Hardré et al. 2007). Due to remoteness, rural com-
munities and schools generally face serious economic and community resource con-
straints, a fact that places students in rural schools at risk both in terms of motivation
and academic achievement. Rural schools often have available fewer support programs
and extracurricular activities than are available to students in more suburban and more
affluent regions of industrialized nations. It is not astonishing, therefore, that a consid-
erable part of the scholarly literature uses a deficit discourse when it comes to the
situation and the opportunities rural schools and communities offer to the education
of their younger generations. But does this have to be?
Here I argue that there are opportunities in rural communities frequently not
available to schools in urban areas, which, when entire communities – students,
teachers, parents, administrators, and politicians – are encouraged to capitalize upon,
may actually advantage rural students over those living in urban or suburban areas.
It turns out that I not only grew up and live in (semi-) rural communities – I currently
operate a garden in my backyard that produces, year-round, all vegetables that we
need and also has a small five-count flock of by-law-permitted chicken – but also
spent a large part of my middle- and high-school teaching career in rural communi-
ties and subsequently conducted research on teaching and learning science in what
are termed “semirural” communities because of their dual, hybrid characteristics that
arise when urban characteristics are infused into and mix with heretofore entirely
rural communities. In this chapter, I articulate some of the advantages that come
from teaching and learning in rural communities as exhibited in a design experiment
that I conducted in the semirural community (“municipality”) of Central Saanich,
British Columbia, where I am also a resident. That project was explicitly grounded
in an integrated program of social and environmental justice concerned with involving
children and students in building a sense of place both in rural and urban environ-
ments (Roth and Barton 2004). I begin with an account of my early teaching, which
allowed me to develop an appreciation for rural education and the opportunities it